Shades of Grey, Book II: Dances the Shadow
by Wired Dragoon
Summary: Sequel to "Shades of Grey, Book I: The Oncoming Storm".  The Grey Companions have made it to Cairhien. Ruthlessly playing "da'es damar", Zath & Tarmion soon face noble houses, darkfriends and Aes Sedai in a game were losing is not an option...


**Author's Notes: **

_1.) The usual disclaimer. The Wheel of Time series is owned by the late Robert Jordan and the respective copyright owners._

_2.) English is not my native tongue, so if you find sentences that sound awkward or words that do not quite fit, bear with me and blame it on my online dictionary._

_3.) This story is a continuation of _Shades of Grey, Book 1: The Oncoming Storm_. If you have not read it yet, I strongly recommend you to do so. The characters used in _Dances The Shadow_ have mostly been introduced there, and the story itself will be hard to understand without the prior knowledge given in _The Oncoming Storm_. You can access it via my profile. Please be so kind and post a comment about or review of it. Your input is the only tangible way for me to see what works and what does not. Thank you!_

**Chapter 1**

**The Towers of Cairhien, Part 1**

_The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again. In one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to come, an Age long past, a wind rose in the early weeks of winter. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time. The wind blew across half a continent, from north to south, from west to east, then again northwards along the great River Alguenya. It smelled strange to some, as if it did not really belong there, and but when it ebbed off it carried with it a sense of foreboding..._

**On the Road to Cairhien**

The road along the River Alguenya was a broad slip of gravel and trampled dirt that formed an almost rock-hard and easy to traverse surface during the long months of the hot Cairhienan summer. It followed the course of the river from the great city itself down to were it became just another fork that filled the River Erinin with more water on its long way from the Borderlands down south to Tear, where it had already become a mile and more wide before it forked itself into the Fingers of the Dragon and poured into the Sea of Storms. Both, the road and the Alguenya, were filled with traffic and with people. Wagon trains and oxen carts and even people on foot moved in both directions on the road in such volume that its width was barely able to cope with it, and grain barges from Andor and Tear slowly meandered up the river, pulled by pairs of four or six or even eight horses on a special path directly on the river's shore. River galleys and other boats, some mere rafts, others sleek pinnaces with two small masts and triangular sails blowing the wind that came from the north, crosses their courses on their way to the cities and kingdoms in the South.

Nearly every village they came through had at least one, sometimes even two large inns and at least a jetty for all but the largest river boats, and – as Zath noted – the came through truly an astonishing number of settlements. One could not go one hour by wagon without leaving one village and entering another. And even though the kingdom had never recovered from the Aiel War and the loss of its trade with silk from the East one could still get glimpses of the old wealth here and there, where even the huts of river fishermen and those of serfs had good roofs and often glass windows.

Still, with those many people on the move the small band of the 'Grey Companions' found it easier to make camp off the side of the road than haggle for beds and tables in the overcrowded inns in one of the villages. Six wagons drawn by four horses each as well as thirty men on horseback made for more customers and beds than most smaller taverns could handle. That, and it would have been a waste of well-earned money to spend it all for some overpriced, flea-infected sleeping hall where the wine was shallow and some fourth-rate gleeman sang the same songs for the whole evening. No, the Companions had quite some experience with life on the road, and it for certain had proven easier to just buy the food they needed from local farmers if they could hunt it or gather it themselves. That, and setting up camp like this satisfied the men's desire for security. Each stop, sentries were posted and the wagons circled. One thing Zath and the others had learned quickly when they had set out to start this new life of theirs a year or so ago was that often the threat of force was just as useful as actually using force itself. Half a dozen armoured and armed men who looked as if they knew what they were doing were enough to keep any potential trouble at bay, at least long enough for the other thirty armed and armoured men to appear.

He had long since stopped wearing his cherrywood mask when they were among themselves. People here knew who he was, what he was, and they did not care. Born half man, half myrddraal nine months after his mother had been taken from her village as a slave and raped by one of the eyeless, he had been an instrument of terror the Dark One used against the borderlands before he had started his long quest to become free and reclaim his humanity. He had escaped and made his way a thousand miles and more from the North to the South of the Westlands before he had met Tarmion Genda. His travels with the man he soon proudly called his best friend had again taken him across half the continent, across the folds of space itself, through joy and through terror.

'Joy' sat right next to him, kneeling in front of the camp fire, and ate her lunch of roast fish, wild onions, sprouts and flat bread from two days ago. Arianna Malaidhrin was tall, almost as tall as he was. She had braided her long, silvery hair into half a dozen small braids that hung loosely over her back and shoulders while the brown hardened leather harness she wore accentuated her female curves. A series of throwing knifes stuck in a belt she wore across her chest, and the short sword in the scabbard at her side and her strong fingers made it clear to even the most oblivious observer that behind the sun-tanned face with the high cheek bones and green eyes the spirit of a fighter lay awake and waiting. A long, white scar ran across the right side of her face and her eye there was blinded, but Zath did not mind that at all. He loved her, and she loved him, and that was all that was important.

"I haven't had time to eat just yet," Mellen Ollon commented gruffly and scowled as he looked into the pot of stew. "Great, you've only left me scraps, and they're already cold," he muttered. The flames under the pot suddenly flared up and Mellen jumped back, cursing while Arianna giggled and Zath hid a smile. "Light, burn me!" the older man snapped without any true hostility and let himself slump to the ground besides the two of them. "I really have to get accustomed to that," he frowned and ripped off an edge of the flat bread. "At least it's you who's doing it and not the boy," he sighed, then cocked his head. "How's he doing, lad? I haven't spent nearly as much time with him as I want to," he said apologetically.

"There are good hours, and then there are those were he's barely reacting to anything we do," Zath Talaka answered hesitantly, his hands unconsciously resting in the grips of his two _Thakan'dar_ -made daggers. "He's been through a lot, Mellen," he reminded the older man. "You know how he is when he's practising the sword with me and the men, and give him something to sink his teeth into and he's planning and scheming, maybe more so than ever, but leave him alone... ." His words trailed off and he shrugged.

He could feel how Arianna next to him used the female half of the One Power to stir the flames in the camp fire. Just like Aes Sedai who had sworn the Three Oaths could sense shadowspawn he could sense women – people, really – use the One Power in his vicinity. He had found out that the stronger the flows were that somebody channelled the more nauseating it felt for him, but he had not survived the Blight and all that had happened during the past year by being picky. Indeed, he had encouraged her to practise her powers, just as she practised his skills with him.

"But yes, there are times when he's just staring straight ahead for hours," he sighed.

"It's hard to say what is eating him up more," Arianna chimed in with her clam, melodic voice. "The grief, or the effect of the stilling."

Nobody envied Tarmion Genda for what he had gone through during the past year. His wife and unborn child had been killed in a raid by men from Tar Valon and Aes Sedai of the Red Ajah who had hunted his wife's father. He himself had been almost fatally wounded in that raid, but by means that nobody could explain he had risen from his sickbed and chased after the attackers. And Tarmion himself kept an iron silence over the incident. Whatever had happened back then had unshackled something in him, and he had returned as one of the dreaded men who could use the cursed male half of the One Power, _saidin_. Ever since the Dark One's counterstroke the day he the seals on his prison had been renewed by Lews Therin Telamon, the man the world now knew under the names he had been given – Dragon and Kinslayer, for when the madness had taken him he had killed all his friends and all of his blood line -, the male half was tainted, and that taint inevitably lead to the madness and death of those who used it. Some burnt short and bright like torches, succumbing to the sick sweetness of _saidin_ and the taint in few months. For others, like Tarmion Genda's father-in-law Azral Tane, it was a slow process of withering away like a flower in autumn. But Tarmion Genda had always proven to his friends to be a reasonable, calculating man. He had sought out help from those who had taken all that was precious to him from him – and had had himself stilled.

That had been two months ago.

Ever since then, the remaining Grey Companions, the close-knit unit of siege engineers and fighters had been on the way to the North from the sparsely populated woodlands of the _Haddon Mirk_ to the Kingdom of Cairhien.

"Well, he'll certainly get better once we're in Cairhien and that devious mind of his gets something to work with," Mellen said with a weak smile after a long pause. Mellen Ollon had been an innkeeper for most of his life, but the heavily build man had gone through a transformation during the last year that had apparently left little of the old self intact. Strong like a boar and deadly with the short-handled axe and the morning star he carried in slings on his belt, Zath and Tarmion both knew how much it was due to the older man that they and the men and women had survived the past year. Strangely enough, his wife also had fully embraced her new life on the road after the village of Strongquarry on the western side of the Mountains of Mist had been destroyed in a thunderstorm and the avalanche of rocks and boulders it had created.

That had been roughly a year ago, but for all of them, not the least the innkeeper-turned-mercenary captain, it seemed as if it was a whole lifetime ago.

"He'll get better then," he repeated what he had just said. Tarmion Genda, receding auburn hair cut short, sat with empty eyes on a coachman's seat in the shadow of a huge tree, staring to an imaginary point somewhere in the distance. His face was blank and sunken. "He'll get better," Mellen murmured, and hoped he was right.

The square white walls of the ancient city shone in the early midday sun as the wagon train of the Grey Companions crossed the ridge of the soft southern hills before it. Cairhien was a massive settlement, by far greater than any Zath or Tarmion had ever lay their eyes on before, its walls encompassing easily three or four hundred thousand people. And those were only those that dwelled within the confines of those high white walls!

Like a giant maze streets and houses sprawled all around the outer city walls into every possible direction, easily adding another two hundred thousand or so people to it. Like a fungus, those houses and arbitrarily running streets stretched out across to whole basin and even grew up the slopes of the rolling lands that surrounded the nation's capital. They were contrasted by the rigid checkerboard pattern of the streets within the city walls, where even the quarters of the less affluent had been built in neat, geometrically accurate rows along the same axis as the domes and towers of the mansions of the nobles and merchants princes.

And above all that throned the famed towers of Cairhien.

Six, seven, even ten times higher than the square towers that lined the city walls, their jagged tops reached into the sky above the city like the broken fingers of a fallen giant. Their walls glistened in the sun, sparkling in the colours of the marble and the polished white stones that had been used to build them. Some stood as they were, but many an other was surrounded by scaffolds like ivy that grew around tall trees, and even from the distance it was easy to imagine the great heights the men labouring on them had to face.

There had even been talk on the roads that Ogier stone masons were working on some of them. Zath wondered if he would see some of those. Ogier, in a sense, were like Trollocs in as so much as most people considered them to be the product of fables and stories for children. Now, Ogier seldom left their stedding, and the world at large had to thank the borderlanders that the same could be said for the Blight and Trollocs. Still, Zath had never before seen one of the Ogier himself, and some kind of curiosity most certainly was justified even in a grown man like him.

He looked over his shoulder to search for Tarmion Genda who wrote with him at the top of their column and found the man's eyes fixed on the city before them. Before breaking off camp, Tarmion and he had practised their swordplay against each other until both of them glistened with sweat and gasped for air. His actual skills were still far below those of Zath, and even further below those of Ariman, but the frightening speed and reflexes he seemed to have developed as of late made him an opponent worth training with. That, and once he had set his mind on a task he remained somewhat responsive to the world around him. Anything that reduced the bouts of apathy Tarmion fell into from time to time was welcomed by his closest circle, and it certainly appeared as if the notion of arriving at Cairhien today had raised the man's gloomy mood by a good margin. Indeed, Zath could see the mind of his friend racing behind his watchful eyes.

He slowed his horse's steps and waited till the auburn-haired man had caught up with him. To his joy and surprise, he immediately cocked his head into Zath's direction and grinned.

"Impressive, isn't it?" he asked excitedly and pointed at the city, taking a deep breath as if he wanted to savour the atmosphere of it all.

Zath had to smile at his friend's good spirit and nodded.

"Certainly a lot bigger than anything we've seen so far. You could fit Katar in here five or six times over and you'd still have space to spare," he commented and saw his friend wince. He already wanted to silently curse himself for bringing up the memories of the city on the other side of the Mountains of Mist, but Tarmion relaxed again.

"Thanks for reminding me of the awful smell there again," he scoffed but there was laughter in his eyes. "I almost 'feared' I had forgotten that."

"It's a pleasure to be at your service," Zath answered levelly before both of them shared a laugh. "So, tell me, what do you have in mind?" the halfman wanted to know.

Tarmion Genda's eyes returned to the white walls and the people behind them.

"The people here play the Game of Houses for almost any reason," he began thoughtfully. "And we have one single but very important advantage on our side once it is extended to us, too, which it inevitably will."

Zath nodded slowly. Ariman had explained _da'es damar_, the Game of Houses, to him, the perpetual intrigues and manoeuvres that took place between the noble houses of the city and nation of Cairhien. It was an infinite gamble for power and influence in which even the lower classes were involved, and it could get very dangerous if you stepped on the toes of the wrong people. And thirty armed men riding into the city behind him and Tarmion in plain, dark grey would make a lasting impression that was bound to draw a reaction. People would assume Tarmion was a lord, maybe even a foreign one, and Tarmion would do nothing to convince them he was anything but that. That he was 'Lord Genda' to most of his men anyway would make the charade easier.

"So we stick with the plan?" the halfman wanted to know. Now that they were back on the road and among other people he wore his cherrywood face mask again that hid the colour of his eyes.

"Yes. Yes, we do," Tarmion said calmly after a pause.

It was a dark plan the men had worked out. Dark, and calculating. Zath Talaka had no problems with the moral ambiguity of it all. He knew the world was not a place made up of absolutes, of the shining good and the unrepentant evil, but at times it still surprised him how quickly the others had adapted to that world view. Then, given their experiences over the past year or so... . He shrugged inwardly. No, as Tarmion had once quite correctly remarked, they were no longer afraid to get their hands dirty. And if they stuck to their plan, they would soon get dirty, indeed.

It had been two days since the 'Grey Companions' had taken up residence in the spacious 'Silver Stag Inn', and one since the first wax-sealed letters had started to arrive. The burly innkeeper had ceded the common room's back room to Tarmion and his inner circle without further comment when that had started, though he undoubtedly took notice of every new envelope that came through his door. Tarmion did not blame the man. In _da'es damar_, the right knowledge could count for more than swords and money, and if you believed some people, everybody was somebody's pawn in it. Indeed, Tarmion would have wagered all the coins in his purse that half the patrons that were not his men were spies or informants of one of the many houses that sounded out the situation about the newcomer. Word travelled fast within the walls of Cairhien.

"Those are all very minor houses," Aryman pointed at the tray with envelopes that stood on the table on the other side of the room. "Hardly more than a title and a fancy house to back it up for the most part. There _are_ a few among them," he conceded, "which have a bit more substantial influence, especially if we take the merchant houses into the consideration," he pointed out.

Tarmion and his closest council sat in deep, cushioned leather armchairs in a half-circle around a fireplace in which thin flames licked on less than half a dozen logs. Despite the encroaching summer months it still was cool inside stone-walled houses of the great city, and none of the men felt like changing their long-sleeved woollen clothes for something more delicate. Staying at the 'Silver Stag Inn' proved to be a stroke of luck, for the innkeeper – greedy as he undoubtedly was – had grasped the opportunity by the forelock and given them good quarters at a low price. He knew he'd make twice the money just through the rumour mill, and all the people hurrying in and out after having a drink or two seemed to justify his calculation. It also gave Tarmion and the 'Grey Companions' a base of operations and a means to do some reconnaissance in the huge city.

"Still, if I understand you correctly, we'd better follow up on one of those invitations, as minor as they are," Tarmion cocked his head inquiringly towards the older swordmaster, and the Taraboner noble nodded in acknowledgement.

"True enough, my lord," he flashed a brief smile as Tarmion's cheeks blushed as he used the fake title. "Not accepting _one _of them means you'll get on the bad side of _all_ of them, and the best way to keep the rumours floating and your, ah, 'market value' rising is to immerse yourself into the game, if you excuse my leisurely use of metaphors. That's inconvenient and costs us time, but approach it from this angle: for one, it gives you a genuine chance to win an ally before you get even truly started. And secondly, the experience, even if it went wrong, is invaluable. No matter how you do this, it'll get us closer to the invitation we actually seek."

"I see. Thank you. Aryman, you've been to Cairhien before, right?"

"I know the city back from the days of the Aiel War. That was the last time I've been here. Why do you ask?" the swordmaster wanted to know.

"Well, it's just that we might need someone who knows a thing or two about forging someone elses hand," Tarmion gave him a thin, mirthless smile, and the Taraboner shrugged as if that was the most natural question he had ever heard.

"I'm familiar with some of the less savoury parts of the city. I can't guarantee that I'll be able to find anyone suitable for what you have in mind, but at least I know where to look for him."

"That brings up another question," Mellen growled. "Is the foppish dunce even in Cairhien?"


End file.
